I know I haven’t written anything in a while, what with working 55-hours a week and all (gotta make up for all that $ I didn’t make last year). And while exciting things have been happening at The Orchard, I didn’t want to bore you with that or turn this into a fanboy-obsessed blog. So I was thinking that tonight when I got home after both work shifts that I would possibly write about

Last Saturday. I caught a whiff on Twitter that Rana Sobhany, the world’s first iPad DJ, was going to be “spinning” a set at Bluebrain, a special night at The Fridge, which is a new (to me at least) little art gallery on Capitol Hill. I was working last that night but I tweeted her and she said she wasn’t going on until 11 or so and that worked with my timetable of getting back on The Hill. The show included a downloadable iPhone app where the audience could twist the knobs and affect the sound output of the DJ, but unfortunately I missed that portion of the art show. But on the good side, I got in without paying the $5 cover. Rana was on when I got there and I listened and grooved to the rest of her set. It was pretty poppy but still fun. I talked with her afterwards and she seems like a nice person, really warm and conversational. There was some other fun art showing there too, and a live painting in process that anyone could add to. Fun.

Or I could have written about

Last Sunday. Eric H, sky mattress extraordinaire, art curator and sometimes blogger, was celebrating his 40th birthday. And what better way to do that than to get 30 friends together, start them drinking mimosas at 11:00 am and then throw them into a disco bus and take them out to the Virginia wine country for the afternoon? Some bottles of champagne made it onto the bus and there was a wide selection of yummy nibblies being passed around. We stopped at two wineries, sampled some wine, bought some wine and sat out in the hot sun. The 2nd winery had lawn bowling setup under some shady trees and that provided some recreation as well as relief from the sun. Needless to say, knowing this crowd, we all had a good wine buzz going by the time we rolled back into DC. Then topping the evening off with La Lomita? Perfect.

Or I could have written about

Today. I’ve been thinking about Mom all day, as this would have been her 73rd birthday. I miss you Mom, not only today but everyday.

And then this happened:

I’m biking down Maryland Avenue, on my way from the full-time to the part-time. Apparently I am not paying too much attention to the road as I hit a major bump and am sent flailing head-first over the bike, at 20 mph. I crash down on the pavement in a twisted heap with the bike twisting up my legs so that when I realized I’ve stopped on the street I’m not sure which way I’m facing and I cannot move. I remember at that moment being in extreme pain, yelling out “Fuck! Fuuuuuck!” and having visions of dropping florescent lighting tubes from four-story buildings, tomatoes and what it would feel like when you think you’re standing in your life and all of a sudden the walls, ceiling and floor get stripped away and you’re then standing on nothing in darkness wondering where the fuck everything went.

Luckily the kind folk who live on Maryland Ave came to my rescue. An older gentleman from across the street, who had seen the whole crash happen, came over and helped me untangle myself from the bike and get me to stand up and get out of the street and onto the sidewalk. A woman came out of her house asking if I was okay and went back in to get me a bottle of water and a wet towel. After realizing I was basically okay with only flesh wounds (no broken bones, no head injuries) and telling them I was only going one more block down the street they reluctantly left but took many thanks with them.

I hobbled on down to The School and immediately looked for a first aid kit, finding supplies and getting into the shower to rinse the blood (and hopefully the gravel too) off and clean my wounds. My left elbow and left knee took the worst of the fall, which is weird because I think I remember the wheel turning left as I fell, meaning I would have fallen on my right side. I guess it all happened so quickly those details might not be clear.

So I’m pretty beat up but at least no broken bones in this old body and thankfully there were no cars directly behind me that might have run me over. As the man from across the street said “It may hurt now but you’ll really feel it in the morning”. That’s what I’m afraid of.

This morning I woke up an extra hour early to prepare six brownbag lunches. I’m going to NYC with Jeff (his bday weekend), Chris, Eddy, Shawn & Doug. Since my frig was stoked this week I’ve volunteered to make lunches for everyone for our bus ride. Orders have come in and there are sandwiches to make! I’m adding surprises to everyone’s bags: Twinkies and chocolate candies.

Chris is needing to go downtown and file some paperwork so I go with him to drive around in the car so it doesn’t need to be parked. I cruise around downtown/N Cap/Rhode Island Ave and listen to MTV VJ Mark Goodman on 80s on 8 on the satellite radio. Apparently Martha Quinn starts the morning show and Nina Blackwood is up next. They referenced Alan what’s-his-name so I’m hoping JJ Jackson also had a job there. Funny how they’re all working together again.

Back to the trip: we all make it to the bus ontime and get seats together. They have electrical outlets in each seat so we can all arrive with our phones and laptops fully charged. Nice.

Once the bus is moving we break out our picnic-sized amount of food. We also have countless bags of chips and Slim Jims. We’ve take over the aisle as our open-bag picnic storage space. Doritos? We got ‘em. Sun chips? Got those too. Kit Kat? Why sure!

1:53 // Three of us are asleep. The other three are clicktapping away on a laptop, an iPhone and an iPod touch.

2:44 // Eddy’s playing SimCity on his iPod touch. And cranking on it, as a matter of fact. He knows the interface wells and narrates his city’s history as he plays. He has 37,304 residents and $478,887 in his bank.

3:25 // After a bus break at the Woodrow Wilson Recreation Center and Stop we have reached the split in I-95 North. Those that have traveled this will know what I’m talking about.

3:49 // We’re getting to the point where, over 20 years ago, the World Trade Center first appeared on the horizon for my first trip to New York. On that trip I remember driving down West Side Highway and taking a picture straight up out of the sunroof of the twin towers. I wish I knew where that photograph was today. It’s probably in the basement of my Dad’s house, packed away in the box it’s been in since 1986 when my parents moved. I still have the picture in head though; that will have to be enough.

This is Eddy’s first time to the city so it will be fun to play semi-host and watch someone else be starry-eyed like I was all those years ago.

5:16 // In Manha’an! We walked the 20 short blocks north of where the bus dropped us to make it to our hotel. A great, short walk that took us right thru Times Square. Good thing for Eddy to witness. We’re staying at the 4-star Hilton a block away from the MOMA. This is world’s away from the cheap hostel I usually stay at on W83rd.

5:23 // Our rooms are on 32nd floor!

9:39 // At Stonewall, where the Pride movement began.

10:54 // These things that go through my head seem to not matter in personal conversations, and this is why I share them here.

12:37 // After Ty’s, Hanger, now a limo ride to The Eagle.

4:20 // Bedtime. After yet another trip to the corner gyro merchant. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of him in the next few days.

4:40 // In bed. Talking with Eddy about the Towers and about old Manhattan and new Manhattan and what that all means. Can you relate?

4:42 // Eddy’s game stats: Population 113,336 and his bank is $653,689.

4:43 // We’ve opened the windows to sleep to. There is a pleasant rumble from the city coming up, and sirens and honks seem distant because they are so far below us. I love this city.

Earlier this morning I set out at 8:30 to check out the newly- (and finally-) finished visitor’s center at the Capitol and to see the Lincoln exhibit at the newly-reopened National Museum of American History. I guess it was one of those DC/History kind of days. 

Walking down to Lincoln Park I got in touch with my friend Eddy C, also recently unemployed, to see if he’d like to accompany me and hang out for the day. He said he’d love to so I walked over to his house and we were on our way. But not before a stop at Jacob’s, a local coffee shop for caffeine—I’d already had almost an entire pot of coffee, being up since 3:00am—and a little breakfast to get us on our way.

The $600 million+ Capitol Visitor’s Center is atrocious. And that’s only from the outside. There’s nothing to see from the outside since it’s all buried underground in an effort to not allow citizens any proximity to the actual Capitol itself. Fears of truck bombs, concealed gun anthrax and the like have far removed the actual building itself from the physical grasp of the taxpayer. What you can see at ground level is a huge, unshaded concrete plaza (wouldn’t want to be there in August) and massive ramps and stairs that lead you underground to the entrance. Removed from the Capitol grounds are the 150-year-old oak trees that once provided shading. Here are before & after pictures.

The entry line was way too long, full of turrists, so we opted out. Maybe next time. Maybe not.

Eddy wanted to visit the Botanical Gardens so that was our next stop. I’d been there a couple of times but not within the last few years. As usual, it’s beautiful and fragrant inside and the colors were amazing. A majority of the orchid collection (a BG must-see) had been moved into the Garden Court and of course daffodils were tucked into just about every nook and cranny. The tropical rainforest was a little too humid for our heavy coats but it’s still fun to explore.

Next we visited the Hirschhorn to see what their new exhibits were. While not a big fan of literal sculpture (which the Hirschhorn has a lot of—I prefer mine more abstract) I was more impressed by the two video exhibits they had, one a frenetic light show on 70 monitors and another a 30-minute film which we watched. The film demonstrated a progression of liquids, gases and solids as they interacted with cause & effect, moving the action further down, and sometimes up, the line. Very fun.

Then it was lunchtime. I had two coupons for free salads or sandwiches at Potbelly so all we had to pay for was our drinks and a pickle. It was getting to be almost Ellen & Oprah time so we hopped the D6 back over to CHill to watch. We also decided it was time for an unemployment cocktail so we had a little gin+gin[ger] while we watched our afternoon talk shows. Such a civilized day!

After going to bed around 12:30 last night, I woke up at 3:00am and couldn’t get back to sleep. It is now 7:40 and I’ve given up on falling back asleep so I’ve gotten up and made coffee. But I still feel tired.

Last night I was giddy with the prospect of going to La Lomita with Melba, my first dining-out experience in the last two months. I had a $25 gift card which paid for most of my portion so I was able to rationalize the expense of going out. It was a great meal, with great conversation, and I practically licked my plate clean. Hopefully it won’t be another two months until I can return.

Usually after our nights at LL I would wake up at some point in the night, smacking my lips together and needing to hydrate from the split pitcher of margaritas earlier in the evening. Maybe that’s what woke me up last night, maybe not. For when I did wake up, it was with the abruptness of what’s-her-name in Pulp Fiction when she gets the adrenalin styringed straight into her heart. I wasn’t having a dream, at least not one that I can recall, that shocked me awake. Then I just couldn’t get back to sleep.

Now I’m counting down (and hoping I can stay awake until) brunch today. A good friend from NYC, Nancy, is down this weekend and offered to take me to brunch. See how the love is flowin’ y’all? We’re meeting up at Rosemary’s Thyme which I have never been to. Oh! Let’s check out their brunch menu. I think egg’s benedict (always a favorite) or maybe the cured salmon. Or maybe the spinach ravioli from the lunch menu?

I went with the eggs benedict. They were good, but not as good as the eggs neptune at Busboys & Poets that I had a couple of weeks ago. Also joining for brunch was Glen, and also down from New York. He’s a freelance web designer and combined with Nancy’s ad agency experience they really sparked me up on the New York job market and are going to return home and see if they can dig up any contacts or job opportunities up there in the Big Apple.

They had a couple of hours before their train left so we scooted over to the National Building Museum. We visited the Detour exhibit: new and unique rest stops and pit stops along Norway’s National tourist Routes; and Green Community: pollution-contaminated urban spaces and their steps towards turnaround to a viable, livable and public-transit-friendly communities. The Detour exhibit had great models and photography and we discussed how great it would be if our government’s “stimulus package” would incorporate some clever, unique designs instead of awarding the contract to the lowest bidding contractor. Probability factor: not likely. The Green Community exhibit had some really cool electronics in it, including traffic lane entrances that while you walked forward, the vehicle you were standing over (I ended up in the bike lane) would move with you and give you information on that mode of travel. At the end of the exhibit was this wonderfully animated touch-screen of an evolving community and the choices that can be made to improve it and why those options are beneficial. Fun stuff.